Quiet days at last for our little ship, the fleet continues to sail north , manilla now on her flank. Quiet days to contemplate, think, recover.

The Charge returns to work, below decks, the condensate pump runs again. No words of thanks are given, they would not be accepted. What had to be done, has been done.

Moral is climbing, the rumour mill is churning at full speed...............Home again.............home again. The allies have been dealt a bloody nose.............home, refit rest, a chance to recuperate.

Foolish thoughts, all of them. In the Arafura sea, 24th flottilla betties send the sighting reports, the intelligence community listens to the radio chatter,. Recons over darwin continue to fly.

Already, it seems, Darwin Harbour groans again under the wieght of aircraft, her harbour again swarms with LCI's, APs and APAs......... 20 plus carriers...............incredible to report, it seems, 20 plus carriers are in the Arafura sea. Japans navy seeks rest.............America's it seems, is setting itself to roll.

Your day. the broadcast awakens you just after 4 am, swinging your almost naked body out of the hammock. The sweat glistens, and the atmosphere about you in the half light is thick and humid. You jostle against your companions, busy at the task of rolling your bed into its daily sausage shape. It is your bed during sleep, during waking hours it is a ready made leak plugging device. Whoa to you if the XO should find it not ready........ The mess is mainly silent in these early hours..........after all, after so long at sea, what is there new to talk about?

You join the steady stream climbing upwards, your action station is fwd, ammunition handler for a 25 mm gun. This, for you is the best part of the day. Only a few stokers action stations are above decks, yours is a special treat. You join your gunner mates in the early dawn light, the cool breeze so sweet across your skin. Zuiho steams steadily into the clearing mists of the dawn, the other ships solidifying as the sun breaks the dawn.

Dawn action stations. Even here, deep in the heart of the empire, a serious task. No Bukas sighted for three days, but they are out there. Waiting.

Action stations fall out, and you make for breakfast, fighting for a space at the benches. Another day, another meal, rushed again. Another brick in developing a lifetime habit..........if zuiho's crew survives this war, a great many will have partners who will eternally complain of meals swallowed at the rush.

To work. Not below for this stoker, but down aft, Chippee workshop. A magical place, of burning torches, of wood shavings, of shelves overflowing with a countless number of nick nacks, bolts, screws, pipes, brackets, gaskets. A mans shed, on steroids

Chippees workshops revolve, here at sea, around one thing. The defect log. A simple notebook, a great many lines of entries, a great many scrawled out, a great many not. The defect log, where the ten thousand and one things that break on a warship get reported to. Tap doesn't work..........the notebook. Toilet blocked?.....bracket needs welding?, leaking pipe?, need that desk fixed, a new shelf, those filters cleaned?

Chippees shop, the defect log. And this is what makes this place magical...........the CPO hasn't assigned a task for today, so you reach for the book.........

47th sentai recieves replacement fighters. They will be needed, Fuchida, all of them, feel it in their bones.. Orders have arrived...."When ready, 47th will move to Balikapapan"

Simple orders. But this night, as Fuchida watches the golden moon through the canvas of his tent, the bugs beating to death against the roof, his mind chews over these simple words.

News of the Darwin assualts have filtered through, yet apparently..........they are already coming again. Right where it will hurt the most. If Japans best, are going to balikapapan, then it can mean but one thing...........soon high command expects it to be in bomber range.

But after 2 and a half years of war, Japan still has found no way to stop the barsteds.

Takeji is working at his desk, sunlight streaming through his portholes, when the bang comes. Distant, underwater. His pen pauses...........calmly, he stands, places the forms into their folder, takes his Cap in hand. Already about him Zuiho is springing to life, his OOW obeying his standing orders. He does not need to ask as he enters the bridge. Instinctly he KNOWS............it just seemed so inevitable now days.........

"Which one?"

Katsuragi sir, single fish..............."

Inevitable...........a fitting word for such a trucked up situation................

Yet for all the tension, lying hidden just below the surface, it is a easy day......takeji , for the first time it seems in ages, finds himself almost with nothing to do. He dare not move too far from the bridge, yet at this slow speed the OOW is hardly going to need his help.

It gives one time to think, yet, there are so many things one would rather not think of. The strain, he knows, is beginning to show. Not on his men, but on Zuiho itself. Defects are piling up, he see's Minobe rarely in the course of a normal day (and to be honest, on some days, never, when the whisky wins), but this week he has seen him often, and more alarmingly, at times he has been sweat covered, once, incredibly, there had even been oil on the overalls. This , above all, conveyed more clearly than any briefing the true state of affairs below. His little ship needs a rest. Gods, they all do...........

Fuchida climbs wearily from the cockpit. The KI-44C may be the latest model, the seat is still ****e.

kendari.

The same depressing features every japanese base he has seen in the last year or so. Dirt strip, battered trucks that serve as fuel tenders. The same drooping palm trees, the same discarded fronds scattered averywhere as camoflage.

The heat , the same, oppressive, even, gods be damned, the same smell of something rotting faint upon the air. Even the crew chief looks like all the others, skinny, dirty, cap askew, the same nochanlant ease.

'Welcome to kendari sir" Fuchida takes another look.

Same pathetic air of indifference.........he nods towards the largest hut at the edge of the field..........'The mess?"

The Crew chief grins, 'Actually no, its furher back, thats the supply HQ, too bloody prominent for clever people like yourself sir, what with this place being in bomber range"

Ahh, yes, another blood feature............what airfield now was NOT in enemy range? "Have we been vistited yet chief?"

a shrug........."two, three times, the port mostly" As the rest of 47th swing into the field Fuchida begins walking towards what is obviously the command bunker, while the chief and his truck of men begin to tend to his craft, that at least is an improvement, too many fields have seen too few men for too many planes.....

The bunker is underground, a narrow tunnel, surprisingly comfortable. Two long benches along each side, radio communications, a table, maps, a good dozen men. 11th airfleet HQ..........a busy HQ indeed.

The news is simple. A massive enemy carrier force south east of Koepang............

Doing what?

squat all.

Orders for 47th?...............wait.

Somehow though, Fuchida does not think that order will last very long.

Herbiesan views the map again. The empire still seems so large, yet now, thanks to the B29's, it has shrunk overnight. Nowhere, it seems, is safe.. a million places to guard, to defend..................an exagerration maybe, but the shortage of fighters to do it with is not.

But now, it seems, another crises.

"And port blair?"

His navy minister (a mouse of a man........sometimes one pines for the hulk of Yamamato..........) blanches........... "Its wrecked..........the power of these bombers is frightening.......'

An understatement.................what a skill we Japanese have to shrink mountains into molehills, until of course, the mountain falls upon us.

Herbiesan cuts through to the issue none of his underlings wish to confront."Our fleet is crippled, and near home, miles from the front. A massive fleet is swanning about of Timor, and Port Blair is definately on the list!. Pray tell me, what have we to oppose what is obviously coming!"

'There is a battleship at singapore, CVE Chunyo, 2 heavy cruisers, some destroyers............ "that is all?"

Hosho sits in the mouth of his bunker. There is a small tree down near the river, 100 yards away. Rumour has it, that there are small fruits on it. They may be poisonous............then again, they may be not. They are definately in enemy machine gun range.

Fuchida and 47th move to an even smaller field..Endah, a mere 120 miles from Koepang. If the enemy remain as they are, tomorrow they must be in the thick of it.

Zuiho and her companions make the final run into Japan. There is an important moment, Zuiho's airgroup departs for Shimonoseki.

Diogawa expresses what is uppermost in many minds..........."don't you dare get sunk tonight!" It is said in jest................but their is some truth in it, the waters here are literally crawling.............

They wait, staggered across the skies. At 20000 feet, 47th tigers circle, below them, staged at various altitudes, the zeros, the NK1's. Nearly 100 strong.

They wait, but they do not wait for long, the americans come. They are sighted, 50 fighters, 200 plus bombers, nearly 80 miles out, coming for Endeh, coming for their field, coming for their home. 47th are our best, our very best. The others, too, are not too shabby.

Fuchida see's them under his port wing, passing underneath, course due north,..............the zeros already angling in from behind. Leader waggles his wings, another section leader waves his, the tigers bunch, turn north as well, then split, half racing now at full throttle above the great formation, the other, Fuchida amongst them, wheeling to the port, coming parrallel, waiting for the moment.

Fuchida watches the unfolding scene..........the stream of bombers, the zeros sweeping in from astern, the Tojos above, themselves on the flanks, NK1's coming up from ahead. He smiles, savagely, for their is no humour in this.the hell cats have...........to put it mildly.......a problem.

$7ths top section peels and dives down and into the fight. Fuchida adjusts his goggles, the world wheels, and they join the attack.

Above him the fight rolls on, the defending fighters have failed...............the fighters, 47th in particular, are in amongst the bombers.

Fuchida nurses his plane down, the engine barking, coughing, vibrating....his teeth set on edge, he walks the narrow path between speed and stall, between glide and falling short of the strip.

He banks, hands fly, the wheels come down. Tracer hammers across above his left wing, blue spinning death fills his mirror. Action instinctive.....hard left rudder, but stick forward and harder into right thigh, his bird slews, the right wing dives, the nose swings left, she crabs down and sideways, the enemy snarling above and past.

The field rises, straighten, down, bounce..........and all about the earth is exploding as the bombs begin to fall,

Bouncing, bouncing, on the very edge of out of control he tries for the trees..............a curtain of dirt stitches across the nose......Helldiver!........nothing for it...ground loop.earth, dust noise, ............

Out! The scramble...50 yards to the trench................lungs, legs pounding....... .and in! the earth heaves, above, again, again, again, gods, how many!, and again and again, the howl of the dive bombers, the scream of the bomb, the air actually pulsating, the earth convulsing...........

The raid, seemingly lasts forever. For the dead, i suppose it does.

Endeh is obliterated.

The Tigers try to land. Few make it in one piece.......again, and again, the touch, the wobble.the crater, the collapsing gear.....the belly slide.

The liberators come an hour later, they incredibly miss. Well maybe they don't.........there is nothing really left to bomb here

Babar has been taken, keeping it supplied, getting the Marines off is an altogether matter.

The allied carrier fleet sails westward, now deep into the Indian ocean. ( a deployment filling Japanese HQ with more than a touch of panic) Taking advantage , dilli field is visited by a flying squad. 22 Judys escorted by a pack of fighters attack babar, NK1's have swept the way operating from Ambon.

Carnage 2 DEs are sunk, a AK, and 4 LCI are obliterated, men and vehicles flung across the reddening sea.. The allies are using a club japan a razior.

The Commander surveys the list, fingers twisting a carefully maintained moustache....... A name leaps out

'Pilot officer Graham' Long pig Graham............"A celebrity I see" The WO laughs.........I hope he is happy that there's no Jungle under him this time" "No..........get him straight into it, recon over Port Blair ASAP"

Zuiho lies alongside, awaiting an empty dock She is quiet, resting, her crew mostly ashore. It is hard not to think, that she too, is sleeping, utterly exhausted by the months just past.

In japan, two stories of contrast are about to begin In Tokyo, the great Dictator reads his reports, consults his maps.

A little ship has returned. So has his son, its squadron at Hiroshima. And a man, all powerful, wonders if his son will weaken, and see him...............

In japan, a great Emily slices the waters, powers to a wharf. 30 tired, dirty men emerge, almost in wonder at the peace of the surroundings about them. One, in particular, spies something beyond dreams